Job Description:
Position: Strategy Lead
Location: New Delhi
About The Udaiti Foundation
India's growth will accelerate when women can participate fully in its economy, as workers and as business owners.
Udaiti is working to make that possible. Over the next decade, we aim to expand women's access to quality formal jobs and double women-owned enterprises.
We work with governments, industry, and ecosystem partners to turn evidence into practical change — from improving women's pathways into jobs and leadership, to helping women-led businesses grow, and addressing barriers such as mobility, childcare, and safe housing.
Udaiti works on three key levers of change:
Employment: Increase women's access to quality jobs and their share in the formal workforce from 18% to 30% by 2030.
Entrepreneurship: Enable women-led enterprises to become job creators. Enabling Infrastructure: Design scalable solutions for safe and affordable housing, childcare, and mobility for women.
Position Summary
Udaiti is at an inflection point, moving from a phase of experimentation to one of scale. As the organisation grows, the central question is no longer only what works, but which bets are worth backing so that impact reaches women at scale. This role exists to help answer that question.
Sitting within the CEO's office, you will work closely with the senior leadership team to define and design the strategic bets Udaiti should focus on. You will identify strategic interventions, translate them into well-designed solutions, and shape the program strategy behind them. Once a strategy is robust, you will hand it over to the program team to take it to scale, so that good thinking becomes implementation on the ground.
Udaiti's work is still evolving, and this role lets you help shape it. You will collaborate across sectors and institutions, and see first-hand how great ideas move from research and pilots into wider adoption. We want people who combine ambition with rigour, and who want to help make women's economic participation central to India's growth.
This role suits someone who enjoys working in a start-up environment, thrives with minimal hand-holding, and is comfortable with ambiguity and independent ownership. Above all, it is for someone who cares deeply about women's economic empowerment.
Key Responsibilities
Strategy & Opportunity Identification: Identify high-leverage opportunities that can create systemic improvements across key levers of women's economic participation (jobs, entrepreneurship, and enabling infrastructure); take selected priorities from research and design through stakeholder alignment, pilots, and early execution; convert ambiguity into clear actions, resolve bottlenecks, and assess when an initiative should scale, adapt, or stop.
Narrative Building: Create strong narratives and strategic roadmaps for new initiatives; support thought leadership through reports, convenings, op-eds, videos, and other strategic communications.
Partnerships & Fundraising: Explore and shape new partnerships for program implementation, advocacy, and thought leadership; work closely with the fundraising team to develop fundraising strategy, concept notes, and pitch decks for new initiatives.
Required Qualification, Skills & Abilities
- Approximately 6-8 years of high-quality professional experience, with evidence of increasing responsibility and ownership.
- Background in consulting, strategy, economic development, public policy, a high-growth operating environment, or a similar problem-solving role.
- Strong analytical and strategic thinking skills, with the ability to convert ambiguity into clear, actionable plans.
- Proven ability to develop structured narratives, high-quality reports, briefs, and presentations.
- Excellent written and spoken communication skills, with experience engaging senior stakeholders.
- Ability to work independently in ambiguous, fast-paced settings, with strong problem-solving and execution focus.
- Entrepreneurial, self-starter mindset with a strong sense of ownership.
What We Offer
- Opportunity to work on a bold national agenda to advance women's economic empowerment.
- Opportunity to shape strategy and drive high-impact initiatives from the ground up.
- Exposure to senior leadership, external partners, and cross-sector stakeholders.
- A dynamic and collaborative team environment with mentorship from sector leaders.
- Professional growth and learning opportunities across Udaiti's partner and foundation network.
Remuneration
Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and commensurate with experience.